Sins of a Father
by syd
Summary: Jack shares his many regrets as he looks at the future. Chapter 6 is up! (Current up through "Salvation")
1. Irreversible

Disclaimer: These aren't my characters, this isn't my story, I'm just telling parts of it someone else forgot. JJ, ABC, and Bad Robot own them all and when I'm done playing with them I promise to put them away.  
  
Chapter One: Irreversible  
  
"You didn't tell her what you did to her after I left, did you?"  
  
Those words pierced my heart when I heard them. Not because they came from the mouth of a woman who had hurt me in so many ways I've since lost count, but because they were the utter and unyielding truth. The same truth that I had feared Sydney would learn since the day I was told she was an agent. It was wrong, yes, I don't deny it, but I can't change it. No one can. And that is the reality that Sydney can't.won't come to. I've made mistakes. I've murdered, stolen, lied. Everything we do is irreversible. Most people take actions they can live with. I wish I was one of those people.  
  
There is a list so long only God Himself knows it's true length. It goes on and on, starting with events that came to pass decades ago and then ending with, or rather leading up to ones more recent. This list is the one that describes the sins of a father: all the things that I have prayed would be wiped away for the sake of my daughter.  
  
***  
  
When Sydney came to me about seeing her mother, I was torn. I hated to see her interacting with Irina. I knew this woman; she was my wife, after all. She was charming, beautiful, endearing, and intelligent. These qualities made her seem the perfect mother, something Sydney had wanted all her life. However, those elements of her personality coupled with the fact that she was pure evil made her more dangerous than the devil himself. I wanted to lash out, tell my daughter to stay away from her, but I knew that would just drive Sydney farther from me. I trusted her, I did, but I didn't trust Irina. An alarm went off in the back of my mind when subjects quickly changed from Irina to Sydney's childhood, but I pushed them back. Then it came: the question, just a simple question, seemingly harmless.  
  
"I have an impression of it, but I can't remember...was I a pilgrim? Or an Indian?"  
  
What could I say? I couldn't tell her that she hadn't been in the play, she'd ask why. So I improvised, "You were neither, you were a turkey, you were the only turkey spared to celebrate the harvest." It worked, even got a smile out of her. I knew it wouldn't hold her over forever. It was only a matter of time before she discovered what I had done.  
  
***  
  
I know that when my involvement with the problems in Madagascar are discovered, regardless my motive or my intent, Vaughn, the CIA, and Sydney will be infuriated. I could care less about Vaughn's reaction. The CIA is just as meaningless to me, there's not much they can punish me with. But Sydney, Sydney, she would crucify me. With every word, every glare, every move, she would damage me. This time I sent her mother away. It was my fault they were separated now. Though Sydney refused to admit it, she longed for her mother. She hung on every word Irina spoke, praying that it would help the CIA and simultaneously, prove her allegiance. What Sydney refused to accept was what I had dealt with 21 years ago in solitary confinement: Laura Bristow was a lie; the last decade of my life had been a lie; the birth of my only child, my little girl had been the consummation of a lie. Sydney couldn't bring herself to that realization. So, through my own deceit, I forced her to do so. I made her believe that she had been close to falling into her mother's trap. I lied to her again. It was justified I told myself; it was the right thing to do. It's amazing how the brain can twist reality in so many different directions that you believe what it's telling you.  
  
***  
  
Sydney came to me when she returned from Madagascar. She was exhausted; mentally, physically, and emotionally worn out. I understood; I had felt that way for most of my life since Irina (Laura), since Irina had left us. My daughter stood there before me on the verge of tears. She was talking, choking and stumbling over every word, but I didn't hear them. I was wondering how I could have let this get so out of hand. I forced myself out of my thoughts and back to Sydney. She looked so helpless, so small. For the first time since she was a child I put my arms around her. I held her tight and she squeezed back. She was whispering apologies through coughs and cries; my heart broke again. Not since pigtails and Barbies, heart- covered sheets and visits from the tooth-fairy had I been allowed to comfort my daughter. Here I was now, though, I was comforting her because of my own misgivings, not from an absent mother or an invisible evil. This was my fault. After this was over, my daughter would never trust me again. 


	2. Losing Touch

Disclaimer: These aren't my characters, this isn't my story, and I'm just telling parts of it someone else forgot. JJ, ABC, and Bad Robot own them all and when I'm done playing with them I promise to put them away.  
  
  
  
  
  
Chapter Two: Losing Touch  
  
I had been in solitary confinement for six months. Most people find visits to the emergency room or divorces traumatic experiences. Those types of events, though, cannot begin to touch the sort of pain that six months of staring at white walls and bright lights can inflict. My only comfort was the mechanical groans of closing gates; they reminded me that there truly was a way out of hell.  
  
I had a picture in my head of Sydney; it was my last image of her before they brought me there. She had finally fallen asleep after hours of tears and muffled screams. I had been sitting in her room, just watching her sleep. Her dark brown hair sprawled across her pillow and wisped across her tear-stained face. Her small hands were balled into delicate fists, one thumb threatened to drift out of her mouth, but she was quiet, still, exhausted. I kissed her forehead and went out to my car, I hated to leave Sydney, but there was something I needed to do. As I stepped outside, FBI officers arrested me saying they had questions about my wife, "issues of national security" they informed me.  
  
I don't know when it was that we initially lost touch. The FBI finally discharged me; they confirmed that I knew nothing of Irina's transgressions. When I returned home, Sydney looked just as I had left her, but there was a dullness in her eyes. It was the same thing I had noticed in my own reflection. Nevertheless, though, she ran and jumped into my arms, giggling and kissing me. I remember her exact words to this day, "Daddy, where were you? I missed you! I love you! You're not leaving again are you?" The questions kept coming a mile a minute and I couldn't remember ever being so elated and so incredibly heart-broken at the same time. Sydney looked just like her mother.  
  
The days went by and my little girl grew up, whether or not I was home to see it. Had the years waited to pass until I was present, Sydney would still be a child. My assignments took me from one continent to the next, sometimes for weeks at a time. I no longer cared about myself and though I loved her, Sydney became more of a painful memory than a reality. Her face was just a reflection of the epitome of my agony. I drank constantly, expensive wines and liquor becoming my only companions. The years passed and I spiraled farther into my manmade abyss. Meanwhile, at home Sydney was nearly 17 years old and the few times I did speak to her, she wanted little to do with me. What had I expected? In her eyes I was little more than a well-spoken aeronautical salesmen with a soft spot for expensive scotch. Her attitude enraged me, but what could I say to her? "Sydney, your mother wasn't the saint you've perpetuated her to be. She was a heartless murderer, she used me, she used us." Of course not, if I had, Laura would die all over again, this time at the hands of Irina Derevko. It would not only uncover the truth about her mother, but the truth about me as well. So I kept my anger and pain concealed and let my daughter loathe me. "One day," I thought, "one day I can hold her again."  
  
And now I stand here wishing again for the day when I'll comfort her from the evils of the world and not from those that I have created.  
  
A.N: Chapters may take some time to get posted, school's busy right now and I can only write them after new eps have aired.unless I get really creative, so be patient. And feedback is much appreciated, tell me what you think! 


	3. World on Fire

Chapter Three: World on Fire  
  
She was always an intelligent child. From the time she was a baby I knew her potential; though small, she was quick to crawl and soon after walk, she started talking just after her first birthday. As a parent, I was ecstatic; as a CIA agent I was frightened. I watched as she grew and continued to learn and was as proud a parent as any. Then I was taken and when I returned, nothing had changed, except the Agency. And that's why Sydney won't listen. She thinks I've betrayed her, and in a way, I have.  
  
I should have never gone to de Souza, but what choice did I have? If I hadn't done it, Irina would still be here to sabotage our lives. (Offhandedly, it seems I've passed that task to myself.) Sydney believes my motives encompass only covering my past, but what she refuses to realize is that my intentions were genuine. It was only a matter of time before Irina deceived her. What would that cost? A mission? A life? Sydney's life? The entire operation to bring down SD-6? It seemed that everyone was willing to wait and find out. I was not, so I protected my daughter. It was my last resort. As much as she believes that my reasons were selfish, only I know that they were not.  
  
***  
  
Water fell in sheets. There was something extra in the air, though, something dangerous, just waiting for a spark to set the night on fire. At the same time, the wind was cold; it bit at my cheeks and fingers as I fumbled with my keys. My bout with insomnia was getting the better of me; the keyhole seemed to dance across the door. Minutes earlier Sydney had called. I knew it was her and I knew what she wanted. I understood quickly that she was trying to keep her voice steady, but her breathing was inconsistent.  
  
"Dad, it's me (pause) I need to see you."  
  
"Of course, Sydney.I'll be there shortly."  
  
I drove as quickly as I could. When I pulled up, my fears were confirmed. She was standing outside under a slight overhang. Her usually straight, auburn hair was now tangled and unkempt. Eyes glazed and distant, she silently refused my plea to get into the car. I hastily got out and went to her, hoping with all my being that there was some way this wasn't about what I had done. As I looked into the trouble eyes of my child, though, I knew exactly what she was going to say. I waited and still nothing.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
It was all I could do to mask my regret for not coming to her myself earlier. Control had always been my best friend. My face usually showed no emotion; it gave no hints, there were no flaws to my façade. Tonight, though, I was broken. Between the lies that were shattering what bonds Sydney and I had finally made and those that had built walls so long ago, I was overcome. When she began to speak I could feel the burning. That burning that I hadn't felt for 21 years was threatening to burst. My vision became blurry. I tried to interject but Sydney would have none of it. I couldn't talk myself out of this. It wasn't Vaughn standing before me, it wasn't some faceless agent meddling with a case they had no business talking about, it was my daughter. It was the daughter that had every right to be saying what she was saying.  
  
"No Dad, you understand something. You took away my choices in life."  
  
A picture's worth a thousand words they say. The words Sydney was speaking cut like knives and they cut deep, but the expression on her face spoke volumes more than anything she could articulate. I opened my mouth to defend myself, but there were no words.  
  
"I will never forgive you for this."  
  
There was no surprise. I knew this moment was coming since the day I learned Sydney had been recruited by SD-6, it was only reconfirmed when she joined the CIA, and again when Irina Derevko was taken into custody.  
  
***  
  
The rain is still coming down but now my daughter is walking away from me. Cold drops trickle down my face; they are rivaled only by the ones that burn streaks across both cheeks. I was wrong, the atmosphere had been explosive, Sydney added the spark, and now my world is on fire. 


	4. One Foot in Front of the Other

Disclaimer: These aren't my characters, this isn't my story, I'm just telling parts of it someone else forgot. JJ, ABC, and Bad Robot own them all and when I'm done playing with them I promise to put them away.  
  
  
  
  
  
Chapter Four: One Foot in Front of the Other  
  
Words, thoughts, images: they're flying through my mind faster than I can consider each one. I want to yell. No, I want to scream to her, apologies, truths, reassurance, but my mouth has become separate from my mind. It's wired shut by my own apprehension. I've never hated myself so much.  
  
She's still walking, her frame looking frail, almost childlike through the darkness. Even from this distance I can see her struggling to wipe the hair from her eyes in between sobs. The further she gets, the smaller she appears. With each second that passes it is harder to fight the urge to run after her, to make her listen to my words. I could give her the truths, the explanations she so desperately wants. But I won't, not tonight. I have to find my own will to continue first.  
  
As I walk away from the spot she left me, I realize this isn't the first time one of our meetings have ended this way. The night I revealed the first secret to her, she condemned me, refused to acknowledge my actions as anything but intrusive. What had I expected? Danny was dead; she had learned the hard way that Arvin Sloane could have filled in for Satan himself on any given day; and I had just burst into her world with a .45 and volumes of unwanted information.  
  
Things steadily progressed, though. I spoke with her Thanksgiving Day. I nearly turned to go home three times that evening. When I reached her porch, once again I nearly left, but I forced myself to push the doorbell and waited with every muscle tensed. Our conversation was brief and Sydney littered it with jagged, razor-edged wit that both stung and calmed me at the same time. I was invited in, but the happiness within was not mine to infringe upon. Work. It was my recurrent excuse. The reality was that I had not had Thanksgiving dinner since the year before my wife disappeared, and I had no intention of taking part in festivities that would dredge up the memories and open the wounds of the painfully vivid past. The next day, as I sat at my desk, a container of leftovers suddenly appeared in front of me. I looked up to see Sydney's smile greeting me. No memory could stop me from enjoying that moment.  
  
Weeks passed, missions were completed, and allegiances were questioned. Our lives and loyalties were both threatened. Sydney's more recent actions were under scrutiny, while mine, shaded by time and layers of secrets, were being uncovered by Agent Vaughn in his blind attempts to appease his and Sydney's curiosity. The time was right though, and I uncovered another truth that I knew would crush her. Laura Bristow had never existed. It was all a game, one that ruined more lives than just ours.  
  
When Cole and his men nearly brought SD-6 down, I was terrified. It wasn't the risk of death that bothered me; it was the threat of dying without letting my daughter know exactly how much I loved her and regretted the fact that I hadn't been able to keep her from this life. Soon though, it was all over, the CIA took Cole into custody and I was given another chance.  
  
Feeling as if I had a now-or-never opportunity, I asked Sydney to meet me at the park that her mother and I had brought her to so frequently when she was a child. At the time, I believed I was making a sufficient step towards a closer relationship with Sydney, and I suppose, in hindsight, I was. However, it was more a reckoning with myself, than it was with my daughter. Sydney stood and listened to my reminiscences of the past and I nearly believed that I was the same man that had gone to that park decades earlier. Though little was said and our discussion was brief, it opened more doors for growth between us than all of the years since Sydney's childhood combined had. And as the carousel turned, carrying its passengers slowly and surely, I had reason to hope our lives could some day be so predictable.  
  
Now I walk through the pouring rain, nearly a mile from my car. My raw hands are bare in the damp air. Though it is only October, the wind is especially cold, even as relentless drops fall steadily. My fingers are so numb they ache, but I refrain from thrusting them deep into my pockets, feeling I deserve the pain. A car alarm goes off somewhere in the distance as I turn to make the trek back to my car. Water continues to stream from my hair into my eyes and down to my chin. I don't wipe it away. Just as the masochist in me allows my hands to ache, it compels my mind to cling to my crimes. One foot in front of the other, I remind myself, but those words do little more than reassure me that nothing else will be so easy. 


	5. Sleepless

Disclaimer: These aren't my characters, this isn't my story, I'm just telling parts of it someone else forgot. JJ, ABC, and Bad Robot own them all and when I'm done playing with them I promise to put them away.  
  
Note: Hi, sorry it took so long to get this chapter up, it was a very busy week! I know it's short and I'm sorry. I'm actually working on another one now that will lead us up to the end of Salvation, can't wait to hear what you guys have to say!  
  
Chapter Five: Sleepless  
  
The rain outside has finally stopped, but the storm has not calmed. In the last five hours, I've come to despise my ceiling. White, barren, and unchanging, it stares down at me. My bedroom window brought no consolation; just a reminder that though I'd been begging, time had still not stopped. A few times I rolled over to stare at myself in the mirror, hoping to find an answer in my own eyes, but they brought nothing more than panic. The eyes looking back at me were lifeless.  
  
Sydney is alone again. She won't talk to anyone. She might find some kind of reassurance in Vaughn's arms, maybe this time she'll go to Will, but she won't talk. As much as Sydney wishes to believe that she and I are different, the truth is, we are very much alike. She finds it nearly impossible to trust anybody in her life. I've never trusted anyone, not since Laura. So she will go to him, whoever it may be, and she will cry. But her tears will not betray her; her silence is the only thing she can control now.  
  
I've been lying here all night. The silence threatens me, mocks me with its simplicity. The early hues of morning are peeking through my window. Normally I would have been up hours ago, but this day is one I'd much rather bypass altogether. I have answers for her; I have lies too. I have everything that she wants to hear. The problem is, I have them. I could tell her the grass is green and she'd check to make sure.  
  
I force myself out of bed, the numbness that was once in my fingers seems to have spread to my entire body, seeping into the crevices of my skin and embedding itself deep within; I feel nothing. There is no more raging conscience or creeping inner voice. I wonder if my soul has left me too.  
  
I pull on slacks, find a shirt and drag my jacket on clumsily over. I straighten my tie, wondering if it's the one I wore the day before. I'm due for an SD-6 briefing in an hour; Sydney will be there. I have so many things to say, it's how many of them she will let me get to before cutting me off. I know she doesn't want to hear my words, no matter how I present them to her. And if she won't listen, I'll do whatever it takes to persuade her otherwise. She is all I have left; I have nothing but her to lose.  
  
***  
  
The briefing went just as quickly and smoothly as always, but my thoughts were somewhere else. My daughter sat directly across from me. All I could do was wonder how I would start our next conversation, God knew she wouldn't.  
  
"We should talk."  
  
"We have nothing to talk about."  
  
I could see the rage in her eyes. She truly wanted to have nothing to do with me, but I couldn't let that stop me. I would convince my daughter that I loved her more than any selfish need or desire. I would persuade her of my undying guilt at my failures as a father--as her father. I've suffered many losses in my career, and consequentially, in my life as well, but I will not lose my daughter because of actions I took in protecting her. 


	6. Redemption

Disclaimer: These aren't my characters, this isn't my story, I'm just telling parts of it someone else forgot. JJ, ABC, and Bad Robot own them all and when I'm done playing with them I promise to put them away.  
  
Chapter 6: Redemption  
  
Bright, quiet, sleek, modern: those are the best words to describe the private jet we are traveling to Geneva in, but they also paint the perfect picture of Sydney Bristow. It suddenly occurs to me that I haven't studied her this closely since she was a child. The voice in the back of my head begins to make excuses as a tide of shame rushes over me, but I push it away. I deserve to feel the guilt my thoughts incur.  
  
She is so close but I can't think of a way to bring our worlds together without them crushing one another. I know that she tried to turn me in; her letter feels like something burning deep down inside.  
  
***  
  
"I thought you deserved a second chance to think things over. Here's your letter."  
  
"How'd you get that?"  
  
"I spent a decade with this woman. Then another twenty years analyzing how she could have deceived me for so long. Trust me when I tell you, I am protecting you."  
  
I knew that she wouldn't take my words for their full value, but I never believed that she could think that I saw her as my greatest mistake. In fact, she was the best part of my life. Over the years I had been gone, in and out of her life for months at a time, and never home more than a week or so between assignments. I knew she didn't think of me as anything but a static character in her hectic teenage life. I had always believed that she saw my absence as indifference, now though, it seemed that all along she had taken it as a passive way to distance myself from my own feelings of fault and loss. Nothing could be further from the truth; if there was one thing that Laura's "death" hadn't done, it was lessen the love and pride that I had in Sydney.  
  
I didn't underestimate her current resentment but I did misjudge the strength of the walls she had created over the years and how quickly she could rebuild them. Hopefully my actions would speak louder than my words because she was deaf to any apology or verbal recompense I could come up with.  
  
As I stood and walked away I promised myself that the next time the opportunity presented itself, I would make whatever sacrifice I had to in order to reestablish Sydney's trust.  
  
***  
  
After seeing first hand exactly what her mother could put another human being through, I hope Sydney is beginning to understand the corruption of Irina Derevko. Her transgressions have not been mild nor few and far between. This woman is a monster; she is capable of inflicting more pain than even Sydney herself has endured. The mission was a success. We got the blood sample and are back in L.A. unscathed. My worst fears have already begun unfolding as we speak, however. Just after I returned, I reported back to the CIA, when I arrived, I was informed of the very likely possibility that my daughter had the disease we had just been sent to get more information on. There is still no word on whether or not Sydney or Vaughn have contracted the virus, but this chance may be my last. ***  
  
My hearing is just minutes away. Senator Douglas is like many others of his profession, stubborn and intolerant. He does not care who I am or what my intentions were, he knows only my actions and is ready to base his opinion on them alone. This hearing is no more than a formality; there is no doubt in my mind that I will be looking at a cell by the end of this day.  
  
"Sydney Bristow, my daughter... has come to believe that when I look at her, I see the embodiment of all my flaws. And this afternoon when I learned that she may have been exposed to a life-threatening disease, I realized that she might die believing that. But nothing could be further from the truth."  
  
I had absolutely no intention of telling this man or any other anything that might compel him to lighten my sentence based on sympathy or pity, but I suddenly felt I was obligated to tell someone exactly how I felt. If I was to be jailed while my daughter spent her last days in quarantine, suffering from an incurable and horrific disease, I would speak as loud and long as I had to, to convince the world that I was guilty only of protecting my daughter.  
  
"When I look at her, when I look at the little girl who raised herself to become one of the most extraordinary human beings and one of the finest agents I've ever had the privilege of knowing, I see only the promise of my own redemption. Turning myself in was the only way I could think of to make that clear to her, to prove that despite... my limited abilities as a father, I love her more than I could ever say."  
  
***  
  
I should be shackled and chained. I should be shuffling through a massive containment center in a drab jumpsuit side by side with hundreds of other prisoners. My conviction should still be pending. However, I am at work, shuffling through new assignments, and shackled by my own shame. Irina Derevko is back in her cell, no longer awaiting her death sentence. And Sydney Bristow is one step closer to being the person that she so recently despised: me. My daughter lied, but through that lie she brought my redemption. It is not the salvation from the wrongs I've committed against this country that I value so dearly, but that which gives me shelter from those lies that betrayed the inherent trust of my child over so many years. 


End file.
